Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It often takes a long time to fill vacant jobs in our government, especially in our smaller communities. The irony is that this is where jobs are needed the most and where unemployment is the highest. Even one job, even one new employee can make a real difference in a community as small as Tsiigehtchic, or even Fort McPherson.

I know one problem is matching local skills to the jobs available. I hear from Minister Lafferty that his department is improving education and training, and I really look forward to some of the good results.

The job vacancy statistics are a little...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few comments and concerns here. Under the Community Access Program there are a lot of great projects that fall under there, but one of the ones that I wanted to touch on was Willow River. Recently we purchased a bridge just this past year here and we were hoping to have that bridge in place this season. We are drawing near to the end of the season here. There’s less than two months to go. I presume there are no funds secured for that at this point and I’d like to hear something positive on that.

Also, I did do a statement in November, I believe, with regards...

This week we’ve been discussing the Health and Social Services budget and hearing quite a bit about system transformation. Also, in some of my past exchanges with the Minister, he has stated that system transformation will include a review and renewal of the Service Delivery Model. So, taking this a step further, I’m wondering if the Service Delivery Model specifically addresses home care workers. In other words, does the Service Delivery Model include a population base formula for determining the number of home care workers assigned to each community, and if not, where are the decisions about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Chief William Koe isn’t the only one concerned about elders in Fort McPherson; we are all worried about them. The simple fact is that Fort McPherson needs more home care workers. A single worker cares for more than 30 people. On average, that means that elders receive only four hours of care in an entire month. It’s not enough, Mr. Speaker, and as the population ages, the situation is only going to worsen.

The community really needs at least one more full-time worker with up to four home care workers available on a rotational basis.

In December 2011, at the outset of the...

I know the department tracks a number of performance measures. I’m wondering: does it track patient satisfaction and program effectiveness, specifically for home care. If so, I’d like to ask the Minister to give the numbers for the Mackenzie Delta communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. We’ve heard plenty in this House about the impending demographic shift, the rapidly increasing proportion of elders. Even before the 17th Assembly, the department was talking about moving away from long-term care facilities and toward more cost-effective home care programs.

In the Mackenzie Delta there are more than 300 elders over the age of 60 and yet there’s a chronic shortage of home care workers.

What is the Minister doing to improve health care in Fort McPherson and other communities in the Mackenzie...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to acknowledge a long-time Northerner who recently retired from flying 747s and 737s. Mr. Speaker, Cecil Hansen hails from Aklavik, and this Saturday a huge retirement celebration will be held in his honour in Aklavik.

The celebration will be in recognition of his service to his home community and for his service to Reindeer Air Services of Aklavik and also to recognize him for his years of service with Canadian North providing air transportation to the whole Northwest Territories.

Cecil Hansen was born and raised in Aklavik. He was one of 12 children born to...

The other thing I wanted to speak about was under the home care and home support services. A great program that was undertaken a number of years back but, you know, in Fort McPherson there’s a huge demand there and right now we only have one person that’s working there and we’re hoping to get another position there. With the demand there, it would make things a lot more suitable as to the amount of clients that they work with. Right now it seems that there’s an overload and the community would really like to have another position there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Is the department developing programs to educate our youth on signs of depression and who they can speak to? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are many forms of mental illness. We have anxiety disorders, eating disorders, craving, mental illness in the workplace, obsessive-compulsive disorder, children, youth and depression, and that’s what I want to touch on today.

While we may think of low mood or other challenges as adult problems, they can affect people of any age. Children and teens can experience mental illnesses like depression.

Sometimes it can be difficult for adults to understand how difficult children’s problems can be because we look at their problems through our eyes as adults. The pressures...